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National law and policies on minimum ages – Cyprus

 

According to the CRC, laws and policies must be directed to the best interest of the child. This is especially so in provisions that aim to safeguard the child against exploitation or an early end to childhood, i.e. in the instances where children are most vulnerable and at risk. Yet such safeguards are often ignored and different areas of legislation found to clash with each other. What happens if the age for the end of compulsory education is 14 but the minimum age of employment is 12? Or vice versa? What if a girl can be married before school leaving age - will she then return to school? And who ensures schooling in prisons, when in reality education should protect children from incarceration?

 

 

 

 

With 192 parties to it, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified UN treaty. Each State Party must submit periodic reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which uses this process to monitor State compliance with the treaty. The vast majority of the information on minimum ages presented on these pages is taken directly from such reports (occasionally, if these failed to include relevant information concerning minimum ages, other components of the reporting process - such as the Committee’s Concluding Observations - were consulted). States Parties’ reports constitute self-assessment by governments and are therefore authoritative sources, emanating directly from those empowered to make decisions. Using this type of sources also permits a range of actors to hold governments accountable for the standards which they report under the CRC. The sections of these reports have been reproduced faithfully, and readers are encouraged to make use of the full original text, available here.

 

Individual country reports are often written by diverse parts of the government, and frequently run to more than 100 pages. Moreover, within some states’ legal systems there are various recognised sources of law, which frequently generate conflicting minimum ages. Distilling precise numbers out of such documents is therefore a precarious task. While we would encourage cross-country comparison, we would also stress the danger that those countries with a more honest engagement with the reporting process might come off worse when compared with those which would mis-represent the degree of compliance, whether wilfully or not. For a full explanation of the principles that guided us in our analysis, please visit the introductory pages here.

Sources:
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/70/Add.16, 13 November 2002
Written Replies by the Government of Cyprus to the List of Issues, 11 April 1996
Initial report: CRC/C/8/Add.24, 3 February 1995
 
Minimum age for the end of compulsory education
From 2nd report
115. Education for ages 5 to 15 is free and compulsory and free for ages 15 to 18.
 
Minimum age for admission to employment
From 2nd report
106. […] the Children and Young Persons Employment Law prohibits:
(a) The employment of children under the age of 15 in any occupation;
(b) The employment of children under the age of 16 in any industrial occupation, but allows children between the age of 15 and 16 to be engaged as apprentices for the purpose of learning a trade or calling to any person who holds a special license issued by the Minister of Labour and Social Insurance. (see section 3 of the Children and Young Persons Employment Law, Cap. 175 as amended by Law No. 21 (1) of 2000);
(c) The employment of persons under the age of 18 underground or in a mine.
 
Minimum age for marriage
From both reports
Information unavailable
From written replies
9. […] In accordance with the provisions of the Civil Marriage Laws (Law No. 21/90, covering marriages where both parties belong to the Greek Orthodox Church and Cap. 279 which applies to mixed marriages), the minimum age of marriage is eighteen years for men and women. Persons under the age of eighteen but not-below sixteen must have the consent of their persons/guardians. In the case of an ecclesiastical marriage between two persons who are of the Greek Orthodox religion, the marriage is governed by the Charter of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus. According to the Charter, the man or woman must have attained the age of eighteen. No consent of any other person is needed in this case.
In the case where the man or woman or both are younger, the consent of their natural, adoptive parents or guardians is required if this can be obtained, otherwise the final decision will be left to the Bishop.
The attainment of the age of eighteen for a man and sixteen for a woman is the minimum permissible age for marriage. The relevant Bishop has the right in exceptional cases, after taking into consideration the reasons given, to allow the marriage of persons of a younger age.
 
Minimum age for criminal responsibility
From 2nd report
11. As far as these recommendations are concerned there has been further development regarding the age of criminal responsibility, which has been raised from the age of 7 to the age of 10. There is no criminal responsibility up to the age of 10. There is criminal responsibility between the ages of 10 and 12 if it is proved that during the act or omission, the child had the capacity to know that he ought to have avoided the act or omission ((Amendment) Law No. 15 (1)/1999).
 
Sources:
2nd periodic report: CRC/C/70/Add.16, 13 November 2002
Written Replies by the Government of Cyprus to the List of Issues, 11 April 1996
Initial report: CRC/C/8/Add.24, 3 February 1995